


Kin

by murdermurdermurder



Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mac and Cheese, Permanently Unfinished, Swearing, enjoy for what it is, which is essentially two men having dinner
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 14:18:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1821520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murdermurdermurder/pseuds/murdermurdermurder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Family are the ones who claim you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kin

**Author's Note:**

> Man, I love these guys. I multi-chapter love these guys. That's a lot of love, people.

Wrench was a country boy; he liked his beer cold and his plate full and not much in between. He took baths in the evening and was up before dawn, and he drove like the road was a rodeo ring. He watched cowboy films with the subtitles off because he knew all the words, and he called his Ma every other Sunday to check on the cattle and his brothers and the wife he didn’t want but loved all the same. Sometimes he’d stopover in Bullhead to visit, and Numbers would sit in the car for however long it took Wrench to reacquaint himself with the daily lives of 14 cousins on each side, reading whatever American classic he could pick up at the dollar store beforehand (or the library, if it was open, which it never seemed to be), distracting himself from the discomfort the distance between them inflicted. He’d come back with a meatloaf or two and they’d eat it off the grease paper in their motel room like kids at a slumber party, even though Numbers isn’t a meatloaf sort of guy. Maybe Wrench had told his Ma that, he thought idly as he spooned the still-hot mac and cheese into his open mouth. The thought warmed him in a way he didn’t care to think about.

 

 _Good?_ Wrench asks, gesturing half with his fork and half with his hand. His long legs were stretched the full length of the ungenerously sized motel couch, head propped on a ball of his zipped-up sweaters, plastic box balanced on his wide chest. He smiles at Numbers appreciative nod as if the approval was meant for him alone. _Only so much meatloaf a man can take, huh?_

_Yeah, about a third of what your mom makes spaced out across the next 10 years._

Wrench laughs at that, the box trembling precariously on his chest. It was a rich, deep sound, like the rumbling of traffic or a stampede of bulls on dry mud, and the thought that Wrench would never hear it was something that passed through Numbers’ mind too often to mention. He thought Wrench might know it does, by the way their eyes lock at a distance in the sliver of a second before Numbers can subdue his expression back to something close to neutral, but he didn’t think he’d ever mind enough to say.

 

_I’d like to see you say that to her face._

_I’m a hit man._ Numbers gestures demonstratively to the gun still lodged in the waistband of his pants as if Wrench needed persuading. _What the fuck is your mom gonna do to me?_

A smile curls on Wrench’s wind-beaten face. _You’ve never met an Arizonan woman, have you?_

 

Numbers shrugged, smiling in return, responding only once he had finished his mouthful. _Hey, I like her Mac and Cheese, alright? Focus on the positives._

They finish the whole box by 12am and throw the forks on the dirt-stained carpet in a childish act of semi-rebellion. Numbers knew he’d pick them up in the morning. Wrench did too, probably, if his goading smirk was anything to go by, but with the TV on ignoring him came easier. Not that easier was any great improvement, of course; he still found himself halting at every slightest movement of his partner’s wide hands, the barest tilt of his head, the soft rustle of the bedclothes pooled around his hunched knees. It had taken him 2 weeks to reason it probably had something to do with Wrench being the only man he could think of that might have a chance of killing him. He’d stopped believing that by week 3.

 

_You going back to Santa Monica on Monday?_

_What?_ Numbers signs back, although there was little doubt that he'd understood.

 

Wrench resists the urge to roll his eyes, merely slowing his hands a touch to express his exasperation. _Are you driving back to Santa Monica next Monday?_

_I don’t know._ Numbers pauses, searching Wrench’s face in the way that visual communication allowed a guy to do without crossing some sort of boundary. After a moment he continues, _Why?_

Wrench’s wide shoulders shrug against the cheap plywood-and-foam headboard behind him. _Just wondering. Usually you say beforehand._

_Do I?_

_Yeah._

There wasn’t a word for “oh” in ASL, not one that Wrench had ever shown him anyway, but if there was Numbers might have liked to have used it. He hoped his face went some way in explaining his surprise, which by the insolent smirk playing on his partner’s dry lips he assumed it had.

 

_You didn’t notice?_

Numbers shakes his head with a curled lip and turns his eyes back upon the television as if that was where their conversation ended. On the screen a snapshot of tomorrow’s weather flickered hour by hour until they ran out of new ways to say "really fucking hot", just as they had last night and the night before. Numbers wondered why the South West even bothered with forecasts in July.

 

_What’s it like up there?_

 

For a good few seconds he doesn’t respond. From his peripheral vision he catches Wrench’s hands twitching as they did when he was deciding whether or not it was worth repeating himself, but Numbers makes up his mind before he could, _Why?_

_Just wondering._ Wrench repeats. There was a hesitance this time, as if he could tell Number’s reserve through that one word alone. When Numbers tilts his head a little to meet his gaze he knits his eyebrows in a half-serious show of confusion, _What?_

_Thought you didn’t want us asking questions._

_If you think giving your opinion on a fucking city is going to endanger your life, you’re one paranoid bastard._

 

A different Numbers would have laughed at that. It was a point of some contention between the two, probably _the_ point of contention, and had been for the best part of 16 months. He was pretty sure he could still see the plum shadow of a bruise where his fist had met with Wrench’s jaw the last time one of them had cause to bring up the other’s position on the drawing of the metaphorical chalk-line between business and everything else. Things always ended up like that, with them.  Not that Numbers tried to stop it; the release was nice, and he knew from anecdote as much as from experience there was little he could do that would cause the solid man any lasting damage. He initiated it, if anything. And Wrench usually let him finish it too. Arizonan courtesy or something, Numbers supposed.

 

 _You’ve been to Los Angeles._ His fingers start the sentence before he’s ready, though Wrench doesn’t seem to notice. _It’s Los Angeles._

_White people and tourists?_

_White people and tourists._

Wrench gives this a slow, thoughtful nod, as if his curiosity was fully satisfied by this gross and somewhat unfair generalization. Numbers knew better, could see the flickering glances that followed, but he wasn’t about to ask. Wrench seemed alright with that too, and as the images on the convex TV screen begin to change in the direction of something one of them might end up enjoying, the room returned to the comfortable silence only Numbers could appreciate. 

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I'll finish this. No, really. I will. Don't look at me like that.


End file.
